Princess of Sapphire
by PrincessDaydream77
Summary: My 50th story! This is the life of Helena Ravenclaw, the Grey Lady, the daughter of one of the Founders of Hogwarts. This is how she coped with being in the shadow of one of the most famous witches in history, her own mother, Rowena Ravenclaw, but how they loved each other and coped all the same. At least, they did until that one fateful day in history when everything changed.
1. Pain for Pleasure

Princess of Sapphire

Summary: My 50th story! This is the story of the life of Helena Ravenclaw, the Grey Lady, the daughter of one of the Founders of Hogwarts. This is how she coped with being in the shadow of one of the most astaunding witches in history, her own mother, Rowena Ravenclaw, but how they loved each other and coped all the same. At least, they did until that one fateful day in history when everything changed.

Disclaimer: Naturally, everything belongs to the magnificent JK Rowling and not to me.

Chapter One

Intelligence. It was the most important characteristic in the world to the woman lying in her bedroom, deep within the corridors of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the quality she was most famed for and one that she had brought to her own students, yet Rowena Ravenclaw could not think of one other time she had ever been as stupid as then.

As a young woman of barely twenty-one years old, Rowena had yet to find herself a husband. The possibility of marriage had not even crossed her mind. However, that had not dettered the woman from meeting a man of her own age, a kind and caring man named Xenagoras Ansgot and had within moments fallen in love with him. The two had courted for a long while and one thing had eventually led to another and... well, you truly did not have to be of Ravenclaw House to deduce what had occured between the two.

However, just after this occurance, Xenagoras had been called to war, a Muggle war which he had been chosen to fight in, owing to his Muggle father's blood. Rowena did not want him to go, of course, but had eventually come to terms with the idea and had decided that it was far better to allow him to go with no further worry inflicted on his mind, from her not believing in his cause to fight. So she had let him go. And she so soon after wished that she had not.

Xenagoras was killed by a Muggle soldier, while trying to defend an innocent village from attack. The news had come so long ago, yet the wounds the realisation had inflicted were much harder to forget than the mere time of day, much harder by far. It was later that evening that Rowena had realised how much trouble she was in. She was going to have Xenagoras' child.

Suddenly, a cry from the room beside hers brought Rowena from her memories momentarily. Barely hesitating, the witch swung her legs out of bed and hastened to the source of the noise, her hem of her midnight blue nightgown catching slightly around her feet due to the speed she was moving at. She pushed on the door, hearing a slight clicking noise as it opened and walked through it, closing it softly behind her.

She quickly crossed the room to a celeste-curtained bassinet, golden swirls and flowers embroidered upon it. Brushing the silk hangings to the side, Rowena sighed at the sight. Lying there, with arms flailing, skin reddening and tears streaming down their face was a young baby. A baby girl with waving brown hair and deep chestnut eyes. Rowena's daughter. Both her's and his child.

Although her appearance was entirely her mother's, the sparkle behind the girl's eyes belonged to her father. That much Rowena could see very clearly. Shaking away the thoughts in her mind, she bent down through the hanging and lifting the wailing baby from her cradle.

"Shh, my darling, it's alright. Mother's here. Oh, Helena, my darling, shh." Eventually, after two dozens minutes of being rocked in her mother's arms, Helena Ravenclaw was lulled back into the comforting clutches of sleep.

Helena was the light of Rowena's life, she would not change her for the world, but she was also a reminder of how much had been taken from the woman and how much her life had truly cost her.

But still, Rowena Ravenclaw had her young daughter, the most perfect little girl in the world, and, at least for the two of them, that would always be enough. Wouldn't it?

A/N: Here begins another of my 'Life story' writings. Please review and tell me what you think!


	2. Parenthood and Power

Chapter Two

A/N: Thanks to my bejewelled reviewers, Gryffindork101 and dream-on-sunday.

Half a dozen years had passed since Rowena's reflection upon her baby and the baby had grown, under her mother's guidance to become a very fine and highly intelligent young girl.

One day, when Rowena was sat in her Charms classroom at lunchtime, a quiet rapping sound came at the door. Rowena sighed slightly, placing her goose feather quill down on top of the pupil's essay that she was marking, turning her head towards the door. She had been a teacher at the school ever since she had founded it with three of her closest friends, now unfortunately two friends, mutually agreeing that taking a subject each would be the best decision for all of them, instead of all fighting over the position of Headteacher. Salazar had not agreed with this, of course, as he would have much preferred the power, but he was outvoted, so the motion had been passed. That was just a week before he left the school.

"Come in." she called, beckoning her hand slightly out of habit, even though, the door being solid wood, the knocker would be unable to see the gesture. The door edged open quietly, to reveal a small girl with shimmering brown hair and eyes the colour of gleaming chestnuts. She was far too small to be seen as a student by any member of staff, though the one she was facing would recognise her in a heartbeat.

"Helena? Are you alright?" Rowena asked her small daughter, rising from her seat and approaching the girl, her arms outstretched.

"Yes, Mother." Helena replied quietly, slightly tripping over the words in her mumble.

"Why did you want to see me?" Rowena continued.

"Because I never do, really. You're always here, with your students, but never really with me." The young girl admitted, her eyes directed to the floor. Rowena paused, her brow furrowing slightly at the words. She was almost preparing to tell the girl off for being cheeky when she stopped and suddenly realised... Helena was right.

"Oh, my darling." Rowena sighed, moving forward once more and enveloping the child in her arms. Helena's dark curls brushed against her mother's face as the girl buried her own in the woman's shoulder. "Oh, Helena, I am so sorry. I truly had no idea that you felt that way. I also did not know that my work was affecting you so. Oh, my darling."

"It's alright, Mother." Helena comforted the crying woman, her own tears spilling down her face as she raised her head to face her mother. "And I understand. You have a duty as a professor to concentrate on your students."

"Well, I also have a duty as a mother to concentrate on you, so that is what I shall do." Rowena finalised, returning to her desk to straighten the papers and place her quill back into the inkwell, before taking her cloak from the back of her chair and taking her young daughter's hand.

"Come along, Helena. We should go."

"Where are we going?" A curious Helena asked.

"Anywhere you would like to go." Rowena stated, summoning a cloak for her daughter and bending back down to the floor to tie it for her.

"I won't need my cloak then, Mother." Helena stated, confusing Rowena immediately.

"Why not, darling?"

"I want to go to my bedroom, so you can read me a story. Is that alright?" Helena asked again, slightly scared of her mother's response, as her face was now deep in thought. A smile appeared on her face soon though, as one appeared on her mother's as well.

"Of course it is, darling. Come along." Rowena said, removing the cloak from her daughter's shoulders and placing it, along with her own, upon her desk. She then took the young brunette's hand, leading her from the room.

They walked until they reached Helena's private bedchamber, the very same one that Rowena had rocked her to sleep in, all those years ago, when she had been but a babe in a bassinet. Little had changed about the room since then, except that the cradle had been replaced with a four poster bed.

"Well, then… which story would you like to hear, my darling?" Rowena asked, settling herself down on the edge of the bed and patting the space beside her, to encourage her daughter to do the same.

"May I please hear 'The Fountain of Fair Fortune', mother?"

"Of course you may." Rowena told her, turning to the page in her battered old copy of _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_ and beginning to read aloud.

They had only got about halfway through the tale when something changed in Helena. You see, one of the witches that had entered the garden had done something which Helena had believed to be quite stupid.

The young girl tried to concentrate on the remainder of the story. '_It is my favourite, after all_.' she conceded to herself, but try as she might, she just could not do it. It was like there was an energy building inside her, not anger but something she had never felt before, a force brewing and brewing until it bubbled over like an over stewed cauldron. And just a moment later, it did.

Rowena had reached the final paragraph of the story, close to the ending, when a resounding crack stopped her in her tracks. She gazed around the room to try and find the source of the sound and saw it in a moment. The looking glass hanging above her fireplace had cut clean in half on the wall.

"How on earth could this have happened?" Rowena questioned herself aloud, rising from her seat to run her fingers over the fault line of the mirror. There was no way that this could have happened; there was nothing in the room that could have harmed it. Unless…

Rowena turned at the thought, to see her daughter curled up against the headboard of her bed, shaking like a leaf in utter fear.

"Oh, Helena. Helena, it is alright. There is nothing to be scared of." the elder Ravenclaw comforted the younger, but in truth, she was not entirely sure if the words she spoke were genuine. From the look of this piece of accidental magic, Helena would be powerful.

And true to her mother's thoughts, she was.

A/N: Review, please. I know it's been a while, but still.


	3. Eagle, Lion, Badger, Snake?

Chapter Three

A/N: No reviewers for the last chapter yet. Please make it up to me with this one.

Another five years had passed since the day the mirror had cracked, and it was finally time for Helena to attend Hogwarts as a pupil, rather than as a daydreaming child sat at the back of her mother's lessons. It was time for Helena to begin the remainder of her life.

For many years, Rowena had been debating in jest with Godric and Helga, each setting a number of Galleons on the House they thought that Helena would go to. True to their pride in them, each of the trio had, of course, selected their own House, in the hope that they would be correct, but all three knew that there was only really one place the young girl would go. It was in her blood, after all.

Helena herself, though, was not convinced. She had been worrying for a while now, ever since she had overheard the adults discussing the matter. Before that, she had never given it much thought. After all, no one else really cared whether she would end up alongside the Eagles or not. Why should she worry about it, if they would not do so?

Finally, on the night of September 1st, the time finally came for Helena to find out. She, alongside thirty nine other new students, was to sit under Godric Gryffindor's Sorting Hat, where they would discover where they truly belonged. And for the young girl, the time could not come fast enough.

Five minutes later, and twenty one students had been sent across to their various Houses. Helena had been relieved to see that the ten spaces in Slytherin had been filled, so at least she wouldn't end up there. Where of the other three was anyone's guess. They would not have long to place their bets though, as the twenty second name was called.

"Helena Ravenclaw."

Visibly trembling with fear, the brunette stepped away from the crowd, stepping up onto the top step of the Great Hall and settling herself down on the three legged stool, shifting awkwardly as the Hat was placed on her head, the very magical essence of the fabric spreading through her skin.

'_Ah!_' spoke a voice from inside her head, causing a gasp to escape Helena's lips. '_The Founder's daughter. Well, you would think that you would be a simple one to sort, but no._'

'_What do you mean I'm not_?' Helena asked in her mind, hoping that the hat could actually hear her thoughts. After all, if the Hat was inside her head, maybe she could get inside its head, as well. Or at least be able to talk to it.

'_I merely mean that, your mother being who she is, you would be an easy one to sort, but it seems that you will not be._' Though she was relieved that the Hat could in fact hear her, the answers it was giving her were not the ones she wanted.

'_So, if I'm not an easy one to sort, where do you think I might possibly belong_?'

'_Well… there is intelligence in your mind, a great deal indeed, though I would expect this of one who was Ravenclaw by blood. There is also bravery, though not quite as much. Hmm… Hufflepuff? No! Definately not! But Slytherin? Perhaps. There is ambition in your very soul, a desire to prove yourself, and a thirst to become as famous as your mother is. But where to put you_?'

'_Why is it so difficult_?' Helena questioned angrily, her thoughts buzzing like bees in summer. '_All the others were sat with their new Houses in a matter of moments. Why am I so different_?'

'_That is something that you will discover for yourself in a matter of time. For now, I believe that the House you belong in is becoming clearer to me._'

A fairly substantial pause followed the Hat's statement, heightening Helena's nerves to a higher pitch than they had ever been before. Though she did not remember having closed them in the first place, she hesitantly opened her eyes, just enough to see every one of the occupants of the huge room staring directly at her. The gaze she focused most on was that of her mother, whose eyes were filled with both gentility and a slight amount of concern.

'_Please._' she thought once again, her voice now sounding as close to begging as it ever had. '_Please… I don't mind where I go anymore. Just put me somewhere, anywhere. Just tell me where I belong._'

'_Hmm… very well, then. As a Founder's daughter, along with your own skills, there is only one place you can go to. If it is in your blood, then I cannot argue that you will be…_'

"RAVENCLAW!" The last word was spoken particularly loudly, and it took Helena only a moment to realise that the Hat had hollered it across the Great Hall, as it had done for all the children that had come before her.

With a huge sigh of relief, Helena stood up from the stool, near bounding down the small flight of steps to the table of the Eagles, where her mother was standing, beaming from ear to ear that her daughter had joined her House. Across the room, Helena could also see her godparents, Godric and Helga standing beside their respective House tables, looks of disappointment on their faces, which could be due to the five Galleons they each had in hand, ready to pass over to the other woman, who had won their little bet.

From the look on Rowena's face, Helena could tell that the Sorting Hat had probably made the right decision, for her family as a whole if not just for her. But she didn't mind.

After all, the blood that ran through her veins was as blue and bronze as it was possible to be. If she was not a Ravenclaw, she was not anything at all. Was she?

A/N: Please review, so we can all see what happens next.


	4. The Snake in the Castle

Chapter Four

A/N: No reviewers.

Despite her personal doubts about that fact, Helena was certainly flourishing as a member of Ravenclaw House. She had made a good friend in a fellow Ravenclaw girl named Gisela Bennett, was succeeding in all of her lessons and had become quite the model student. The only problem was this… something just didn't feel right.

She was completely unsure what it was, but something felt wrong when she sat at the Ravenclaw table, when she donned her blue and bronze edged robes in the morning. She felt as if the Hat may have made the wrong choice for her.

When she had communicated these concerns to her mother, the woman had brushed them off, telling her daughter that she was simply trying to become accustomed to her new surroundings. The only problem was, Helena was not certain that her mother was telling the truth.

'_Still_,' the girl thought, shrugging her shoulders a little. '_My mother is proud of me, lying or not, and I am not about to let her down._'

It was for this reason that Helena condoned the gasps and sniggers around the corridors, the malicious whispers behind hands. It seemed that the students had already passed judgement upon her, but the eleven year old tried her level best not to care.

What she did notice, however, was that one boy, one Slytherin, did not snigger, nor gasp, nor whisper to his friends. He just stood and stared at her. Each and every time she turned, he was there behind her.

She had discovered from Gisela, who was a brilliant source of idle gossip when there was nothing else to do, that the boy's name was Baron Godwin Jameson. He was in his sixth year, at age seventeen, and was a Prefect, so she had been told. '_They must have been truly out of options_.' Helena thought, a little smugly. '_He is the cruellest Prefect I've ever seen_.'

That was why the young girl had been so apprehensive at the thought of him concentrating so much on her. '_What if I am the next target of his unpleasantness? What if hates me for some reason?'_ The thought was making her more fearful by the moment. '_I haven't done anything wrong, but may that is the problem. Maybe he thinks that I'm too good.'_

Shaking her head, Helena sighed slightly. '_I am just being foolish.'_ she told herself, a mind speaking in an admonishing tone. '_He probably does not have the slightest bit of interest in me.'_

"Helena?" came a voice behind the girl. She turned immediately, a little startled, to see her friend, Gisela, stood there. "You're not still looking at that ghastly Prefect, are you? You know you'll only scare yourself by doing that."

"I know. I try to stop listening to the stories about him, but I simply can't do it. I have a strange feeling about him, Gisela, and I just know that I'm right to have one." Helena responded, although after a moment, she complied with the friend's request, turning and walking away from the strange Slytherin boy.

Still, even after she had walked away, no longer able to see the boy at all for the distance and the crowds, the young Ravenclaw could not think of anything but him. It was as if he had crept into the very recesses of her mind, hiding there even in her subconscious, like a tiger crouching in the undergrowth, waiting to launch at his prey. It was highly unnerving for the young girl, and she could simply not allow the feeling to pass.

Gisela seemed to have noticed this, as she rolled her eyes, once she noticed that her friend was still away with the fairies. Helena had been rather distant over the past few days and, having known the girl for quite a while, she knew that her mind was occupied by the Slytherin Prefect, as it had been since almost as soon as she had arrived in the school.

"Helena?" she asked her friend, as the pair of them made their way down the spiralling staircase that led to their first lesson, Potions. "He is not going to hurt you, you know. He probably isn't even interested in you, he may have just been glancing over and looked at you for a moment. You aren't in any danger."

"I know." Helena replied with a sigh, though she seemed to have reluctantly given that answer to stop Gisela from speaking.

"Anyway, even if you were…" the redhead began, glancing over at her friend. "I would protect you. He wouldn't get anywhere near you with me around!"

"I suppose so." the brunette responded, with a slight laugh. If anyone could ever have cheered her up when she was feeling nervous, it was most certainly Gisela Bennett, the most witty girl that Helena had ever met, although in truth, she had not met many, having lived at Hogwarts all her life and hardly having been away from the place. Even so, Gisela was extraordinary, and she would never consider having anyone else as her best friend.

However, even with Gisela's threat hanging over his shoulders, one which the girl swore blind she had made in person to him, despite the four year age gap and his being a well-built man, in comparison to her young, eleven year old form, the baron did not leave the young Ravenclaw be. If anything, he watched her more than ever. '_Perhaps because he now knows I am looking back.'_ Helena told herself, in a futile attempt to explain the situation she had unwittingly entered into.

'_I won't let him affect me, not anymore.'_ the girl vowed to herself, the point coming from the dark recesses of her mind, where she had not even known it had rested. Still, she felt that the promise was the right thing to do for herself, and so it was what she had done.

"Don't worry, Gisela." the brunette told her friend. "I won't let that bloody baron get to me."

A/N: A bit of irony to end there. Please review!


	5. The Slytherin Nightmare

Chapter Five

A/N: No reviewers.

Over three years had passed, and still Helena had a strange feeling about the Slytherin boy who had long since left the school. In all that time, she had not forgotten him, not in the least. His haunting stare still remained behind her eyes, his chilling smile appearing constantly in her nightmares. She knew it was silly, as she had often been told, but the young girl could not let it pass.

One night, though it had been years since the topic had been discussed, Helena could not hold in the thoughts any longer. Because of this, she decided to speak of the matter to the only person who knew how much it had affected her.

"El?" she asked, leaning up in her bed in the dormitories, so that the side of her head rested on her palm. The other girl, having heard her name called, did the same, facing her old friend so that they could begin a conversation, despite the late hour of the night that it was.

"Yes, El?" she replied, with a smile on her face that Helena replicated. The game was one that they had come up with long ago, to emphasise the fact that their names were so similar to each other, a sheer coincidence that both of them had always thought meant that they were destined to be friends. "Oh, you aren't still thinking of that villainous Prefect, are you?"

Helena was taken aback by the question. "How did you know that?"

"Only because I know you." she commented in return, shrugging her shoulders in a way that suggested the answer was an obvious one. "And after all these years, I know what you're like. You wouldn't let a twisted idiot like that slip away from your mind, you are too stubborn to do so, one of the very few things that I really dislike about you. I know you, Helena, and you will not let him go."

"Perhaps you are right about that." the young girl said, leaning her head down to rest on one shoulder.

"Of course I am right." the other replied, a self-assured smile lighting up her face as she did so. "When am I ever not?"

Once again, Helena let out a quiet laugh. Gisela was, and had always been, a very smug person, though not in the terribly obnoxious way that most others were. She had always been the one to make the young Ravenclaw laugh even through tears, and was the best friend she could ever had hoped for, particularly after knowing near no children during her childhood. And she was telling the truth. She had always been right about things that her friend was keeping secret, meaning that they would not remain secret for very long. Considering the fears she had hidden from many others over the years, things that could have quite easily destroyed her, had they been left to fester and grow in her mind alone, perhaps this ability was for the best all round.

"Why do you think about him so much, Helena?" the young woman asked her friend, showing the younger two things in the phrase alone. The first was the fact that there was a question she, for once, did not know the answer to. The second was that, due to the use of her full first name, something just as rare as the occurrence of what it meant, she was deadly serious.

"I am not quite sure." she answered, a little cryptically, though it was only the truth and nothing else. She truly did not know why the Slytherin baron occupied so many of her thoughts, both in daytime and at night, and had never truly tried to explain such a thing, not even to herself. "He just… interests me, unnerves me, frightens me, even. He's just there. I've never truly been able to think why, he just… is."

"Do you think that he feels the same way about you? That you occupy the speeches of his mind from dawn until dusk, as he does yours?" Gisela questioned, a faint hint of bitterness audible in her tone. Though she spent a great deal of time talking about them, the young woman could hardly understand the pig-headedness of the male species, and felt that any expression of emotion from them, whether to themselves or someone else, was an achievement in itself.

"No. I doubt he even remembers me." Helena replied, though her voice wavered a little. In truth, she was not quite sure whether this was an accurate statement, but her mind told her that, logically, it must be that way. She was five years younger than him, in any case, and he would probably have found another young lady to look at by now. "It isn't as if I am a memorable person, after all. Why should he still recall a plain girl he saw near to half a decade ago?"

"Helena, you are by no means plain. You are one of the loveliest girls I have ever known of, one of the prettiest, and certainly the cleverest of all." the elder told her friend, looking her in the eye at every moment, so that the girl would have no doubt of her honesty. "There are plenty of reasons why that baron would keep thinking of you, even so long after he last saw you in person. I just wish that there were less of them, for your sake, at least."

"Yes, I suppose so." she returned, with a slight sigh and the faintest shrug of her shoulders, almost completely hidden by the blanket loosely about her shoulders to battle the cold. "And I wish the same. I wish that he will have just moved on from me, that he will have forgotten. Perhaps he has done, we do not really know, and perhaps we never will do. I hope that we never will."

But hope as she might, and though hope she did, Helena Ravenclaw was destined to cross paths with the Slytherin baron once again.

A/N: Oh, here we go. Impending doom! Please review!


	6. A Gift of Curiosity

Chapter Six

A/N: No reviewers, sadly.

The final year of Hogwarts had approached even more quickly than any of them had dared imagine, and soon Helena Ravenclaw had reached the cusp of graduation.

Since the very first day in September, her mother had been crowing over her, making constant remarks about how fast time had flown by since the first year she had studied at the school. It was beginning to irritate the girl, in all honesty, but she did not object to the comments. Her mother had always been a sentimental woman, if not to the extent of her good friend, Helga, especially when it came to her only daughter. '_Besides, my mother is an intelligent woman.'_ the young girl told herself. '_If she is irritating me, she will know it, and if she continues, it is because she wishes to do so. I can't explain the reason for her doing this, but she is, and will continue to.'_

The result of her N.E.W.T. examinations had been returned to her just a day previously, meaning that it was the beginning of July had come about. Rowena had been thrilled with the scores her daughter had attained from her courses, not anything as low as an Exceeds Expectations, a feat that she had accomplished every year of all seven she had attended Hogwarts during, making her a stark contrast to Gisela, whose highest grade had been a single Outstanding in Transfiguration, during her first, fifth and sixth years, and had achieved mostly Exceeds Expectations, with the odd Acceptable here and there. With the grades she had received in the letter from the Headmaster, Helena had passed with flying colours as the highest graduate in her year, by a country mile.

With only a week remaining until she graduated, the young woman had taken to sleeping in the spare bedroom in her mother's quarters, so that the professor could help her to prepare for the evening, something that she seemed to be overly eager to do, for a reason that the brunette could not distinguish, though she dearly wished to, as it was not the forte of her mother to attempt to plan the attire for a social occasion, whether it was related to her beloved school or otherwise.

Still, the help had been offered and so Helena had accepted it, given that she did not see the selection of evening gowns as being the strongest point of her skills, and that her mother had been more than willing to complete the gruelling task of selecting the dress on her behalf.

Since almost an entire week previously, Rowena had spent near all of her free time in the newly built Wizarding shopping outlet, Diagon Alley, at a specific shop named Twilfitt and Tattings, which she had told her daughter was for the purpose of meeting a friend who worked at the shop. The brunette had assumed, of course, that this was the truth, given the fact that Twilfitt and Tattings was the most expensive shop in London, and so had thought no more about it. That is, until her mother came home from the place one evening, with a large box under her arm that read the name of that precise emporium.

"Mother?" Helena had asked, her brow furrowing a little in confusion. "Why do you have a box from Twilfitt and Tattings?"

"Oh, my dear." the woman had answered, a bright smile illuminating her face, though the smile felt a little patronising with the next words she spoke. "I would have thought that a child as brilliant as you could figure it out for yourself."

"I'm not a child." she responded immediately, seeing it to be the safest part of the sentence to pick up on, and the part that was least likely to offend her mother, something which she still did not wish to do, as even at the best of times, crossing the founder of Ravenclaw was an insult that may well lead to injury.

"No. Not anymore." she agreed, with a slight inclination of her head, as she reached for the lid of the box, to open it. Helena moved forward a little, still making a strong attempt not to allow her anger to bubble over, as it threatened to do, but the complaints she was about to make were silenced, as she caught sight of the beautiful cut fabric that lay in the container. "And that is why I wanted to give you this."

For another minute or two, the young woman could not summon the ability to speak, though her mouth was opened in awe for all of this time, her lips moving closer and further apart, as if she was attempting to let the words leave her mouth, but not succeeding, as the moment the moment her mother raised it from the box, she entered the mind-set that the bolt of jewel bedecked cloth was the most dazzling piece of clothing that the girl had ever seen outside of a history book.

The dress was a beautiful shade of sapphire blue. It flowed gently down to the floor, with a line of tiny diamonds lining the path to where it widened as it pooled against the flagstones. In the middle of the waist, a large diamond shape sat, bejewelled with the same crystals as the rest of the gown, as it led up to the beginning of the sleeves, the edges of them tightened by ornamental bracelets. At the neck, it was almost heavy with the weight of tiny sapphires, edged with the diamonds the rest of the dress was bedecked in. It was breathtaking, truly.

"Oh, Mother." the girl sighed, having regained the ability to speak after a long period of silence. "This is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. It's wonderful."

"Only as wonderful as you, my darling." her mother responded, as she often did, but this time, something was not right. There was a glint of something behind her eyes, something fearful and despairing.

It was not until that evening that she would realise why.

A/N: Please review! Please!


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